I think especially the Holofield needs a rework.But not into Void-Shields.

We need to take a closer look at the concept in first place, and collecting ideas how we could convert them into the game.

A Holo-Field is an integral part of the defensive military technology employed by the starships and vehicles of the Eldar. Unlike the Imperium of Man, which makes use of powerful gravitic shielding known as Void Shields to protect its warships and large vehicles like Titans, the Eldar have chosen to maximise their advantages in speed, stealth and deception when protecting their vehicles and warships. The Eldar integrate Holo-field emitters into the structure of every one of their vehicles and starships. A Holo-field is a three-dimensional photonic projection created by a computer-controlled network of special laser projectors that create a field of visual distortion around a vehicle or starship. This distortion makes it extremely difficult to target the vehicle or vessel so protected either by using computer-assisted targeting or by eye, since the projection distorts both electronic and physical perception of the actual location of the object generating the Holo-field. Holo-fields are used by the Eldar at all levels, from the individual Dathedi suits worn by Harlequins, to the shimmering holo-fields of the Shadow Spectres Aspect Warriors, to the massive Holo-field emitters protecting their largest starships and ground-based fortifications.

Unlike the Imperium's defensive Void Shields, a Holo-field is not a true protective force field and only serves to confound targetting sensors. This means that Eldar personnel and war machines are still vulnerable to fortunate stray shots. While Holo-fields are extremely effective when combined with the hit-and-run tactics favoured by the Eldar, they are much less so in any protacted engagement. This is because a cunning opponent will quickly resort to barraging the general area of the Eldar force with artillery and saturating the zone with weapons fire so as to make sure that at least some of the shots strike their elusive targets.

Spoiler : :

Steam-Name: "Marilyn Manson"

"We bring only death, and leave only carrion. It is a message even a Human can understand."

Harlequin wrote:I think especially the Holofield needs a rework.But not into Void-Shields.

We need to take a closer look at the concept in first place, and collecting ideas how we could convert them into the game.

A Holo-Field is an integral part of the defensive military technology employed by the starships and vehicles of the Eldar. Unlike the Imperium of Man, which makes use of powerful gravitic shielding known as Void Shields to protect its warships and large vehicles like Titans, the Eldar have chosen to maximise their advantages in speed, stealth and deception when protecting their vehicles and warships. The Eldar integrate Holo-field emitters into the structure of every one of their vehicles and starships. A Holo-field is a three-dimensional photonic projection created by a computer-controlled network of special laser projectors that create a field of visual distortion around a vehicle or starship. This distortion makes it extremely difficult to target the vehicle or vessel so protected either by using computer-assisted targeting or by eye, since the projection distorts both electronic and physical perception of the actual location of the object generating the Holo-field. Holo-fields are used by the Eldar at all levels, from the individual Dathedi suits worn by Harlequins, to the shimmering holo-fields of the Shadow Spectres Aspect Warriors, to the massive Holo-field emitters protecting their largest starships and ground-based fortifications.

Unlike the Imperium's defensive Void Shields, a Holo-field is not a true protective force field and only serves to confound targetting sensors. This means that Eldar personnel and war machines are still vulnerable to fortunate stray shots. While Holo-fields are extremely effective when combined with the hit-and-run tactics favoured by the Eldar, they are much less so in any protacted engagement. This is because a cunning opponent will quickly resort to barraging the general area of the Eldar force with artillery and saturating the zone with weapons fire so as to make sure that at least some of the shots strike their elusive targets.

So that not a shield, it's a targeting distraction. Which is actually, just a shield that does after certain amount of hits not protect. lol.

OK, anyway the point is to make them not lore, but playable. I don't see anyhow changing fo their shield to be a fix, because it's simply not the issue here.

So if that "distortion" shield can avoid ramming damage by the lore, just because the ship does make than evasive manoeuvres if enemy goes to close. So that sounds likea lore based solution.

Besides one simple point by Eldar accuracy, "idea did come form Mechwarriour" .If you hit an enemy at max range, does it mean you make max damage ?

By energy based weapons you get for sure "power loss" , so at max range you do like only 10% of the damage, while near you do the max.Like 700metere you make 10% damage, at 500meter you do 40% and only at range fo 200 meter its the 100% damage.

So we add to the Eldar that "distortion" shield to avoid ramming and weapons that change damage by range.

I would say this, Eldar can hit for sure at any range , but by reduced damage.Example for Pulsar and Star cannons with range of 12000.

12000 does do only 5% damage.9000 does do 10% damage6000 does do 80%3000 does do 120%This way we will keep the long range and force people for close combat.

With a proper shield that does avoid ram damage, this will be at least playable.

Pulsars:The idea of my foreposter is a good solution, especially for Pulsars. increasing their range to 9k on all pulsar ships, but reducing their damage the more far away you are, allow you a wonderful gamble how risky you doing much damage, or how carefully you doing low damage. It's up to the player, the enemy, and the situation. i like this a lot, especially it will help to making the pulsars from the Voidstalker weaker on range, and changing it's plaingstyle slightly from a jedi knight to a Eldar-carrier (and by considering that this ship has such a impressive Hangar City", it is his right place). And with the lower Pulsar damage on max range, and the starcannons is this ship still be able to make a awesome amount of damage over time, even when his hangars are wrecked).

What's about the Favors?If we get a Craftworld-Fleet in the future, then the craftworld favors are in the wrong faction.Theoretically the Eldar Corsair-Fleet-Favors should be the ones in the following banner (and as a fifth choice / or just by replacing one of them for the Harlequins). The Craftworld favors are needed for the Craftworld-Fleet in my opinion. (but even there, it should be done like the Space Marines chapters, so the favor's itself on craftworld Eldar should be more like: "Autarch, Farseer, Phoenix-Lord, and of course Harlequins or maybe the Avatar ).

About Wraithbone:

Wraithbone is a psycho-plastic material that is highly resilient to damage, and capable of limited self-repair. It, and the other building materials of the Eldar, will grow and react more like living tissue than the building materials of other races, save for the Tyranids' bio-constructs and Necrodermis, the Necron living metal that is the basis of a majority of the Necron's technology. [Warhammer 40k WIki]

It concidering Eldar, Tyranids and Necrons have a regenerating hull (like Zerg in SC for example), but the necrons and the tyranids are far superior to eldar in that ability, so their fleet's should became in adition to the regenerating, some kind of an active ability to increase that ability in one or another way to fit their unique playstyle wich is superior to the normal repair ability and replaces it.

That means for Eldar, they should have a regenerating ability outside of combat "instead" of a repair button in their interface. The thing is, if you want a active selfrepair-button in adition, then you have to buy a upgrade called "Bonesingers" and unlock and max out the crew "bonesingers", to do so. On the other side this could allow a eldarplayer a chance of repair a subsystem like engines that are already destroyed as well. Allowing Eldar "if lucky enough", to come back into the fight after hiding for repair inside of a cloud/stealth).

About Ramming: I was thinking Eldar don't need an active ability to avoid ramming-situations. Their active ability is (and should be) their boost.In Adition to their high speed and fast turning, it should allow them to avoid most of all rammings simply by skilled micro-management from the player. Circle around ships and torpedoes is exactly what their ships are maded for. If you miscalculating the situation, then you're in a big problem.^^

Exception here is the Voidstalker. This ship should be a bit faster to match with your own fleet, and to prevent it from beeing straight outrunned and rammed to death by chaos and sm light cruisers on the first sight, for example. But this can also be simply avoided by increasing the duration of the eldar boost on the voidstalker for 2 or 3 secounds. (maybe with a upgrade like "extra soils") Thats might be already enough to fix it.

But that dosen't mean a good enemy is not capable of ramming them. I think this is actually a part thats really good implementet at this time in the game (if you have skilled the +speed-upgrade on all ships, and your enemy don't have double boost skilled of course). I think i can say, i am avalible to avoild almost everything except teleporting maniacs and the detection probe on my hull , but thats okay as it is at this point of time.

About Holofields:It seems like it has two majority aspects. Stealthing your own ship, and missguiding enemy fire.So it's basically the Assassine Class in other games, like (WoW - the Rogue) or Star Trek (Romulans).

I like the idea of making eldar the faction who relays on stealth gameplay and sneak attacks to match his enemys.(And maybe be able to remove a sensor on it's hull eventually, to keep it working inside of a match by using a different ability).

Their weakness could be to be forced to drop their stealth for fireing and a 5 sec. intervall to restealth (with a longer cooldown on the ability itself, like "vanish" from the rogue). outside of their "perma" stealth, they are reduced to their missguiding ability from their holofields. i think, disruptor-bombs should be disable stealth in generall for a amount of time (20sec or so), as a way to force the Eldar out of stealth. Another way are still detection probes, and novas, so their are much toys for other factions to try to counter eldar's almost permanent stealth ability.

About Starcannons:In adition to the things above. I saw this long ago as a method, used by the creators of the "Fleet Operations mod" as a way to balance the romulan gameplay and forced romulan players to use hit and run tactics. I this fits perfectly to the Eldar Race and help a lot.

If a Eldarship drops stealth to fire it's starcannons at an enemy ship. This starcannon starts firering with a weapon speed of 300% (for example, that means damn fast and devastating - of course), but with each volley they shot, their speed for the next shot drop by an amount (let's say 50%), and so, volley after volley, until it reached finally let's say 50% of their original attack speed. This can only be resetted by leaving active combat (defuse any probes on your hull with another ability at this time) and go back to stealth-mode. And after a few secounds in stealth (for example 6 or 10 sec. ), the ability is resetted to the 300% attackspeed, and this allows the Eldarplayer to be ready for another hit and run move.

Another idea is: I was thinking abut a skill or an Upgrade called "Dominofield" and change the modulation of the Holofield for a amount of time to a cloud of exploding color fragments (let's imagine it as the "Rainbow-version of the Tzeentch ability) with similiar meanings, - dropping active stealth for max. out missguiding enemy shots to flee and to create cover for yourself and for an teammate. (Maybe limit this ability by forcing players to use "harlequin" favor on the ship, to get the Dominofield ability).

Eldar-Torpedos:Eldartorps are way to slow to match with their fast playing style. i think they need an upgrade buyable like the imperials to increase the torpedo speed. Except myself when i play my second eldar-admiral, i don't see any torpedo-eldarship user at all in my matches, so with the speed upgrade and a slighty point cost reduce, they are maybe taken more often.

Thats my ideas and mindgames so far.

Spoiler : :

Steam-Name: "Marilyn Manson"

"We bring only death, and leave only carrion. It is a message even a Human can understand."

I was a contributor to the Eldar MMS (move, move, shoot) movement around 2008 that came up with MMS ruleset.

Holofields just do not cut it at all and we designed the fleet with a mix of Void/holofields with the holofields being very weak. There was simply no other way to do it without Eldar being easily the weakest faction.

In the Table top iteration the MSM (Move Shoot Move) system made it so that Eldar could get in range, shoot then buzz off before retaliation. Longer range weapons and the enemies move + shoot would often still threaten eldar ships but they would likely be on an abeam or moving away facing minimising hits. Also the full fire power of the Eldars batteries (Starcannon) would be felt as all shooting was 'instant' in a turn.

This was frustrating to play against, but at times also frustrating as an Eldar player especially if there was no Celestial Phenomena to hide you.

Now the MSM (official) Eldar Ruleset/system simply cannot work in an Real time Strategy game despite the very good attempt by the Tindalos team. If it were not for the 'crutch' of stealth (which does not exist in the Tabletop game) they would be outright useless in this game.

So what we have now is a frustrating play style in this game. Eldar are pigeon holed into Stealth/Carrier tactics or Pulsar Stealth tactics. Because of how weak they are and the game mechanics Starcannon are just about useless. Eldar don't use a variety of orders..it is stealth all the way unless you get a beacon attached....then it is either Brace or Reload......or when you have already won, lock on comes into play as a finisher.

Certain types of weapons are too effective against them, and others not enough. My solution would be;

So the effect here is that Eldar do have to come in to fight (and ID the enemy) and be vulnerable to return fire. The more damage they wish to inflict the longer they are exposed to return fire (No pulsar 'alpha' strikes and run). With these weak shield values though they cannot sustain it for long and must retreat.

Finally the absurd situation of Beacons = Death for Eldar would largely be averted.

In the highly likely event that the Devs (and everyone else) ignore/disagree with my suggestions I would keep all current mechanics but;

1. Eldar torps increased speed - as they are simply too slow and Eldar cannot risk getting too close to deliver them.2. Vaul's should be on every Eldar ships movement gauge.3. An upgrade that can shake off a beacon.4. Change Starcannons to fire in larger salvos (instead of 1, 2 seconds, try 4,6 or even 8) at the current DPS. At the moment Shadows are just terrible.